What Is Reverse Proxy?

Why It Matters

Reverse proxies are the backbone of modern web infrastructure. For domain forwarding, the concept is important because forwarding services essentially act as specialized reverse proxies — they receive requests and respond with redirects instead of proxied content.

How Reverse Proxies Work

Without reverse proxy:
Client ──────── Backend Server

With reverse proxy:
Client ──── Reverse Proxy ──── Backend Server(s)
             │
             ├── SSL termination
             ├── Load balancing  
             ├── Caching
             └── URL redirects

Common Reverse Proxies

Software	Type	Redirect Capability
Nginx	Self-managed	Full (config required)
Apache (.htaccess)	Self-managed	Full (config required)
Cloudflare	Managed	Page Rules / Bulk Redirects
AWS ALB	Managed	Listener rules
Domain Forward	Managed	Purpose-built for redirects

Reverse Proxy vs Dedicated Forwarding

Feature	Reverse Proxy (Nginx/Apache)	Domain Forward
Setup	Server configuration files	Dashboard / API
SSL certificates	Manual (Let’s Encrypt + certbot)	Automatic
Maintenance	You manage updates, security	Managed
Uptime	Your responsibility	99.9% SLA
Cost	Server hosting ($5-50/mo)	Free tier available
Expertise needed	Sysadmin knowledge	None

If you just need redirects, a dedicated service like Domain Forward is simpler than managing a full reverse proxy setup.